SXSW 2014: Protex

“Protex is a band best served live” and word on the street is these Belfast punks formed in the late 70s and with a little research I can confirm this to be true. Thanks to them I’m starting my South by South West coverage a little off kilter because their sound isn’t at all obviously from that time.

Seeing a video of them performing the track they provided for the showcase this year, from 1980 it’s like a modern band has gone to a whole lot of effort to produce a nostalgic homage to an era from before they can remember and yet it’s all completely authentic.

There’s elements of punk, surf rock, harmonising and with a huge debt to the Ramones. Their sound was short lived reaching its demise in the early 80s and yet here we are in 2014 with them playing SXSW, crazy. The internet is to thank for their reformation- bags of youtube hits, reissues of their old material as well as the easy accessibility to anyone’s back catalogue you fancy.

Dreams don’t die, even if they’re put on the back burner for a few decades.